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Lebanese, Turkish hostages return home after deal

Nine Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted by Syrian rebels last year and two Turkish pilots kidnapped by Lebanese gunmen in August were release earlier Saturday as part of a negociated hostage deal, and have returned home Saturday night.

Lebanese television showed images of the nine Shiite pilgrims, some in dress shirts and other in suit jackets, being embraced Saturday night at Beirut’s international airport. Meanwhile, a plane carrying the two freed Turkish Airlines pilots was bound for Istanbul.

The release of the Turks and the pilgrims is part of a negotiated hostage deal that includes freeing dozens of women held in Syrian government jails. It wasn’t immediately clear Saturday night whether any of the women had been freed, as the Syrian government and the state-run SANA news agency did not mention any such release.

Turkish Airlines pilots Murat Akpinar and Murat Agca had been held since their kidnapping in August in Beirut. The nine Shiite pilgrims were kidnapped in May 2012 while on their way from Iran to Lebanon via Turkey and Syria.

Residents of the mostly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut fired celebratory gunfire into the air, waved the Lebanese national flag and recited poetry in anticipation of seeing their loved ones.

Shiite group Hezbollah end its involvement in the Syria’s civil war, now entering its third year. They later softened their demands to the release of imprisoned women held by security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Assad has drawn support from Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and members of his Alawite sect. The rebels are dominated by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority. Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah have played a critical role in recent battlefield victories for forces loyal to Assad. Hard-line Sunni fighters have backed the rebels.

The pilgrims’ kidnapping set off a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings by Shiite clansmen inside Lebanon, including that of the two Turkish pilots. The gunmen hoped to pressure Turkey to help release the pilgrims.

Turkey is believed to have close relations to some Syrian rebel groups. All three groups of captives - the Lebanese pilgrims, the Turkish pilots and the imprisoned Syrian women - are meant to be released in coming days as part of the negotiated deal.

Lebanese, Turkish and Syrian officials declined to immediately offer more details of the complicated, multilateral exchange. The deal appeared to be mostly mediated by the resource-rich Gulf state of Qatar, which has supported Syrian rebels in their battle against the Assad government. Palestinian officials also mediated.

It is one of the more ambitious negotiated settlements to come out of Syria’s civil war, where the warring sides remain largely opposed to any bartered peace. But it suggested that the parties - and their regional backers - were more prepared to deal with each other than at any other previous time in the conflict.

Rebels led by the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front set off the bomb while assaulting a checkpoint near the town of Mleiha. The town lies beside the suburb of Jaramana, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It reported heavy fighting after the blast.

The state news agency SANA said the suicide blast wounded 15 people, most of them seriously.